Studying While Traveling: How to Juggle Both

Studying abroad is the perfect excuse to indulge your love of travel. It offers invaluable exposure to international cultures and different learning methods, but it also gets you overseas. When you aren’t in the classroom, you’re free to discover a country other than your own.

But it can also serve as a distraction. You’re there to earn a degree, so it’s important to learn how to balance school and travel. Below, we’ll show you a few ways to juggle these priorities.

Establish Your Priorities

Business management author David Allen once said, “you don’t manage priorities, you have them.” In other words, things aren’t important on their own – you assign them importance. On any given day, write out what needs to get done. Then, rank them in order of importance.

But how do you determine that? Ask yourself, if I don’t do X, what are the consequences? If nothing terrible will happen, it is less important. If not doing something carries serious consequences, they are more critical.

Example: You want to plan a weekend trip to Edinburgh, but you have a midterm in two days. Not studying will leave you ill-prepared for your test, while putting off trip planning will not have earth-shattering consequences.

So you study for your midterm now, and move your trip planning session three days ahead. Priorities set.

Make Use of Online Services

Yet sometimes, school can get ridiculous. Professors in different faculties don’t often communicate with each other – this can lead to unfair workloads at the worst possible time. To cope, you can make use of certain online services.

From tutoring to essay writing, they can help you get over seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  

Join Campus Clubs

Don’t spend 100% of your time abroad with your nose buried in a book. You have a unique chance not just to travel, but also to make international friends. To do this, put yourself in a position where meeting people is easy.

Just like your college campus, you’ll find clubs of every persuasion at your host university. When you belong to a club you like, people that share your interests will surround you. In an environment like this, you can’t help but make new friends.

Maximize Weekends & Holidays

After making some new mates, go on adventures with them. Start with your university town – all around you, you’ll find experiences that’ll allow you to connect with the local culture. Further afield, you’ll find exciting cities, amazing national parks, and other world-class tourist attractions.

Whenever you have free time, live your life. Doing so will give you plenty of memories to look back on later in life.